This is what I told my students the other day,

and it actually sums up how I feel, pretty much:

--especially if the pencil of doom is the grading pencil of doom, and the documents falling from the sky are student drafts.

Then yes OMG. There is so much to do.

To do.

couplet!

To do.

Things I need, really really need, to do:

• plant 10,000 poppies
• plant a hedge of red roses, like Sleeping Beauty
• prune my roses
• paint my bedroom
• strip the bedroom wallpaper so I can paint my bedroom
• air everything out
• clean like mad
• think for hours without talking to anyone
• write no more letters forever
• wake up when I wake up
• be outside
• give grave and deeply considered thoughts to things like dinner
• purchase the food of spring, with many many vegetables
• put all my sweaters away
• put all my tights away

Today's poem. Who knows how many poems there will be by the actual end of April.

Ireland: so close, so very very very very very very far away.

We are leaving in about 32 hours. Here is what I have accomplished so far in the way of getting ready:

• I have purchased batteries for my camera.
• I have purchased a magazine for the flight.
• I have purchased a pad of watercolor paper and a pan of paints so I can paint with my granddaughters.
  
• I have made lists. A lot of lists.
• I have picked out several activities I want to do in Dublin.
  
• I have revised my manuscript, readied it to send out a zillion places, and have sent some packets of poems to magazines via the internets, and have readied other packets to send.
  
• I have a fresh haircut.
• I have a wardrobe concept.
• I have done most of the laundry. I think.
  

Now: I still have to:

• SEND the manuscript and packets.
• before that, address the freaking envelopes for the packets and manuscripts.
• uh, print the manuscript, copy it a zillion times, and print the packets.
• pack.
• not forget things like all the cords I need to take so all my devices can be charged.
• clean up, sort of, at least a little.
• cancel the milk delivery.
• call the insurance company (ha! endlessly deferrable!).
• finish reading Farewell, My Lovely, which I have read before, but I need to have fully refreshed for my book group. Also, because it's fun.
• Decide what other reading material to bring.

Possibly, I may have a meltdown or two before all of this is accomplished . . . but then, I will be on a plane and we will be, eventually, in Dublin. Seeing the papers of W.B. Yeats, seeing other exhibitions of various stuff, eating in a pub or so, having picnics, taking a trainride to the Ring of Kerry, shopping and seeing a movie with my daughter, and making paintings with my granddaughters.